In the last decade, ultra-high density (UHD) WiFi deployments in stadiums and arenas have seen an evolution from a network-based architecture employing overhead access points (APs) to deployments predominantly based on APs installed under the seats and in handrails. Such deployments, however, are not the optimum solution for stadium and arena WiFi deployment.
Early UHD WiFi networks in stadiums and arenas focused on using APs employing first generation overhead directional antennas to provide radio frequency (RF) coverage with controlled co-channel interference, as illustrated in FIG. 1. These first generation APs that were generally deployed in the back or above seating sections, did not provide RF coverage in the entire venue, particularly in the front rows of long sections.
A solution to this coverage problem was to employ fill-in (or in-crowd) APs installed in the front of long sections, in handrails and under the seats. The design objective of those fill-in APs was to improve and make uniform RF coverage to provide greater throughput to users. With the introduction of new fan engagement and social media applications, WiFi networks with fill-in APs got overloaded as the network capacity could not accommodate the growing user demand. One of the problems was that only few clients would connect to the fill-in APs and most would associate to the overhead APs, which was not able to service up to a thousand client devices. The reality of fill-in APs was therefore vastly different from its intended goals.
Since solutions involving overhead APs were seemingly underperforming, a new approach has emerged over the last five years where overhead APs are being removed and replaced with fill-in APs by blanketing the venue with many hundreds of under-seat and handrail APs within the crowd, as shown in FIG. 2. The intended advantages of this deployment approach are three-fold. First is to create smaller cells (typically around 75 seats) to increase the network capacity. Second is to provide uniform RF coverage because of the AP's proximity to users. Third is to enhance the channel reuse factor by taking advantage of the crowd body attenuation reducing the RF signal propagation. The use of fill-in APs, however, was a solution to the original problem of underperforming and suboptimal first generation APs, which failed to deliver in large venues. Accordingly, generalizing the fill-in AP solution to an entire venue is not the optimum solution to the coverage problem.